Babette Quotes

Oh, no you don't. You're not heading down to that dock, young man," Babette declares as she clears my plate.
"But Babette, Dr. Felix said I only had to rest yesterday!"
"Yes he did, and I won't make you stay in bed today. But you're going to stay here while I go. I don't think your crutches are able to make it down the path. It's too rough. You'll end up tripping over something."
I scoff. She doesn't know that I'm the guy who not only made it down to the dock, but also did it in the dark WITHOUT falling flat on his back.
"But Babette - "
"No buts, Rylan. You're staying here and that's final"
"Fine," I grumble. ~ Colleen Boyd

To be honest, I keep wishing we could all talk. Chew the fat. And, yes, I know that wishing is another symptom of hope, but I can't help it. As we amble along, trudging over steaming brimstone beds of sulfur and coal, I want to ask if anyone else feels an intense sense of shame. By dying, do they feel as if they've disappointed everyone who ever bothered to love them? After all the effort that so many people made to raise them, to feed and teach them, do Archer or Leonard or Babette feel a crushing sense of having failed their loved ones? Do they worry that dying constitutes the biggest sin they could possibly commit? ~ Chuck Palahniuk

It seemed to me that Babette and I, in the mass and variety of our purchases, in the sheer plenitude those crowded bags suggested, the weight and size and number, the familiar package designs and vivid lettering, the giant sizes, the family bargain packs with Day-Glo sale stickers, in the sense of replenishment we felt, the sense of well-being, the security and contentment these products brought to some snug home in our souls - it seemed we had achieved a fullness of being that is not known to people who need less, expect less, who plan their lives around lonely walks in the evening. ~ Don DeLillo

History
Coming too close
Is monstrous, like a doll
That is alive and bigger than the child
Who tries to hold it. ~ Babette Deutsch

Poetry is the fiery index to the genius of the age. ~ Babette Deutsch

The poet, like the lover, is a person unable to reconcile what he knows with what he feels. His peculiarity is that he is under a certain compulsion to do so. ~ Babette Deutsch

Kay was only half skinny-dipping, but she fervently wished she'd worn something a bit more substantial than a baseball cap and the bottom half of the quintessential teeny-weenie yellow polka-dot bikini. ~ Babette James

As a volunteer reader to the blind, Babette had some reservations about the old gent's appetite for the unspeakable and seamy, believing that the handicapped were morally bound to higher types of entertainment. If we couldn't look to them for victories of the human spirit, who could we look to? They had an example to set just as she did as a reader and morale-booster. But she was professional in her duty, reading to him with high earnestness, as to a child, about dead men who leave messages on answering machines. ~ Don DeLillo

She was so young that love was still a game to her. . . . She was being neither fair nor clever, but Babette was only nineteen years old. ~ Hans Christian Andersen

This is the point of Babette. ~ Don DeLillo

Babette looked too good for the place tonight, but then goodness is only relative after all ("Steps Going Up" aka "Guillotine" aka "Men Must Die") ~ Cornell Woolrich

Who, except the poets, reads poetry? ~ Babette Deutsch

The worst thing was that her school-friends began to copy her. They thought it was dead cool to be a little monster like Lucretia Crum! ~ Babette Cole

Such language," Babette says. "Why don't you just take a dump in my ears! ~ Chuck Palahniuk

At breakfast, Babette read all our horoscopes aloud, using her storytelling voice. I tried not to listen when she got to mine, although I think I wanted to listen, I think I sought some clues. ~ Don DeLillo

Then Martine said: "So yuo will be poor now all your life, Babette?"
Poor?" said Babette. She smiled as if to herself. "No, I shall never be poor. I told you that I am a great artist. A great artist, Mesdames, is never poor.We have something, Mesdames, of which other people know nothing. ~ Karen Blixen

I did not have any money, so when I came to New York, I just dressed myself with whatever I could find and the Army-Navy store. ~ Babette March

I never thought I wouldn't succeed. Not because I thought I was good-looking - I just thought I would make it. ~ Babette March

The difference between Pound and Whitman is not between the democrat who in deep distress could look hopefully toward the future and the fascist madly in love with the past. It is that between the woodsman and the woodcarver. It is that between the mystic harking back to his vision and the artist whose first allegiance is to his craft, and so to the reality it presents. ~ Babette Deutsch

How to sustain the miracle
Of being, that like a muted bell,
Or like some ocean-breathing shell,
Quivers, intense and still? ~ Babette Deutsch

Poetry is important. No less than science, it seeks a hold upon reality, and the closeness of its approach is the test of its success. ~ Babette Deutsch

Christ, what an asshole! Babette said. ~ Herman Koch

According to Babette, 98.3 percent of lawyers end up in Hell. That's in contrast to the 23 percent of farmers who are eternally damned. Some 45 percent of retail business owners are Hellbound, and 85 percent of computer software writers. Perhaps a trace number of politicians ascend to Heaven, but statistically speaking, 100 percent of them are cast into the fiery pit. As are essentially 100 percent of journalists and redheads. ~ Chuck Palahniuk

What shall we do at our tea party?" Daddy asked. "Do we sing and read poems like you do at Grammy's?"

"We can just talk. I can tell you about what's been happening at school. You can tell me about your work or what you did when you were a little boy. You know. Things that matter. ~ Babette Donaldson

You're one to talk about talking crap, Forester." Dunstan's voice interrupts the memory, and I can't help but feel a little grateful. "Accusing my dad of poisoning the swamp? What a bunch of bull."
"It's not bull,"I snarl. "Your dad's dumping trash into the swamp and you know it!"
Dunstan finally loses it and stands up. The boat tilts dangerously. Melanie and the twins shriek, grasping the sides like they're glued to them.
"You two sit down this minute!" Babette bellows. She's holding onto the motor for dear life. Neither of us listens.
"You wanna run that by me again?" Dunstan growls. His fingers curl into fists.
"Your. Dad. Is. Poisoning. The. Swamp." I let each word out slowly like Dunstan's a dumb little kid who needs help understanding. ~ Colleen Boyd